If everything goes as hoped, Wiggins may have all the water shares it needs soon.

Also, construction on the last section of the water project pipeline will begin on Monday.

Those were a couple of things revealed at the Wiggins Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday night.

Wiggins water attorney Rick Fendel said the town could make two separate agreements that together would give it access to 17 more water shares to add to what it already has.

He said Boxelder Creek Properties LLC of Boulder had bought 17 shares of Weldon Valley Ditch Co. water recently, and is willing to sell and share those. Boxelder bought the shares from Joe Hawkins.

In one agreement, the town will pay $822,000 for nine shares of Weldon Valley Ditch Co. water to Boxelder. The town has time to do its due diligence before finalizing that purchase, Fendel said.

In the second agreement, Boxelder is offering an innovative contract to convey another eight water shares to Wiggins in return for the town meeting the augmentation obligations for the water, he said.

That means the town makes sure the water shares go into an augmentation pond that Boxelder would pay for so that the water will drain into the South Platte River over time. This would allow Wiggins to take an equivalent amount of water out of its new wells for use.

Altogether, those 17 shares plus the town's currently available six shares of Weldon Valley water should come very close to meeting the needs of the town with all new water, Fendel said.

That would mean that the town would only have to blend its new water with water from the old failing wells for a short time, he said.

Once everything is in place, the town would have all new water which is much more pure than the water from the old wells.

At first, the town would only have to augment a small portion of those shares, Fendel said.

In addition, Boxelder will pay for and deal with the Water Court proceedings for those eight shares, he said.

There is some risk that the town would have to augment more than it expects now due to the Water Court's decisions, Fendel said, but that would not be much more.

Should the obligation grow, the amount of water Wiggins receives would grow, too, he said.

Another proviso is that if the water obligation goes down, the town could receive less water, Fendel said.

After the Water Court makes its decisions, Wiggins might be able to buy the water shares, but that is probably two to four years away, he said.

If Wiggins needs to buy the water shares, Boxelder would finance the deal, Fendel said.

Boxelder will also apply for temporary approval from the state's water office to use the water while the water case is still pending, he said.

Wiggins will have to pay to file an application with the Water Court to incorporate the new water shares into its augmentation plan.

Boxelder is paying for the new augmentation pond, which includes the pipeline needed to make it work, Fendel said. And that would enhance Wiggins' current augmentation plan.

Boxelder does not yet have a contract for the land the augmentation pond would go on, although it does have a "handshake" agreement, he said.

Wiggins could still back out of the conveyance agreement if the augmentation obligations were something it could not meet, Fendel said.

Boxelder is selling water in Arapahoe County, which allows it to make money. It hopes to sell water to oil companies that are doing fracking and this agreement would make that possible, he said.

A representative from Boxelder said the company looks at this as a partnership with Wiggins.

Fendel also said that Wiggins' current Water Court case may turn out to be settled, rather than going through the whole process. That means it could be all over in early 2014.

The board approved both agreements in the form of resolutions.

The board also approved an emergency ordinance to fund the purchase. It was an emergency ordinance due to the deadline involved.

The contractor which built the bulk of the pipeline that will bring new water from wells northwest of the town plans to come back to finish the final section through the town's flood levee on Monday, said Town Interim Administrator Jon Richardson.

Once that is done, it will take a couple of weeks to sanitize the pipe, he said.

Bond

Board members also approved a resolution to authorize the issuance of $549,000 worth of water bonds.

This will allow it to access the U.S. Department of Agriculture loan that will pay for the final portion of the pipeline and some water attorney bills.

The terms are similar to those of the first bond from an earlier USDA loan, with the interest actually a little lower.

The town must ensure that the water rates are high enough to pay the bond off, said Town Attorney Melinda Culley.

However, it does not look like rates will need to be raised for this, officials said.

Rate study

A water rate study was completed recently, and the board members plan to look it over and do something at the next meeting next month.

The study says that the town should be charging the base rate even for water taps that are not being used.

This study does not include the new USDA loan.

The study also recommends increasing rates by 2 percent to pay for the increased costs of running the water system as costs grow each year, Richardson said.

However, that may not be necessary for the foreseeable future, he said.

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